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From Famous Castles & Palaces of Italy, Illustrated in Colour from Paintings, by Edmund B. d’Auvergne, London: T. Werner Laurie, [undated, 1911]; pp. 257-276.

FAMOUS CASTLES AND PALACES OF ITALY

Decorated Adorment from the spine of the book, of a gilt berry with leaves in black around it on a burgundy woven ground.


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CHAPTER  XI

THE STRONGHOLDS OF THE MALATESTAS

FROM Ferrara we may follow Parisina and her lover on a visit to her father’s home at Rimini on the Adriatic shore. The sovereignty of her house over the little city was established as far back as 1247 by the renowned Malatesta di Verucchio, who lived, sword in hand, a hundred years. His successors extended their sway over many towns of the Romagna and the Marches. At one time, Rimini, Ancona, Osimo, Fano, Fossombrone, Ascoli, Iesi, Pesaro, Cesena, and San Arcangelo called them lord. Utterly unscrupulous, never sticking at any crime however abominable, they were never able to sit securely on their throne. At war with their suzerain the Pope, at war with neighbouring lords, at war with their own vassals, at war with each other, they lived by the sword and perished by the sword.

It is by a crime, indeed, that their name is best remembered. Giovanni, the eldest son of the centenarian, was an ill-favoured man, surnamed the Sciancato or the Lame. He decided to marry Francesca, the daughter of Polenta, the lord of Ravenna; but having no time in the continual strife to fetch his bride, he sent his brother Paolo to wed her for him as his proxy. The brother was a stalwart handsome condottiere not the love-sick gallant he has been 258 pictured by the story-tellers. The maiden believed he was to be, in fact, her husband — only on entering the nuptial chamber was she undeceived. But the passion enkindled at the plighting of the troth was not to be extinguished. Informed by a henchman, the Sciancato hurried up from Pesaro, to find his wife and brother in each other’s arms. He murdered them both — some say at Rimini, others at San Arcangelo.

Francesca, during her bondage in wedlock, would have dwelt at the Gattolo, an old palace which Carlo Malatesta in 1401 rebuilt and painted with frescoes. Among the artists a young man named Ghiberti attracted his notice. He pressed him to remain at his court, but in that very year the Florentine republic announced the competition for the designs of the doors of the Baptistery. The temptation was too strong for Ghiberti and he was lost to Rimini. He was hardly missed among the many artists, poets and philosophers who swarmed round the house of Malatesta as thickly as round the court of Este; and less than half-a-century later his work was destined to disappear. In 1417 was born Sigismondo, the natural son of Pandolfo Malatesta, the most illustrious of his race. “Of all the princes of the fifteenth century,” says Yriarte, “he is perhaps the one that represents best the tendencies of an epoch, where behind the culture of the early Renaissance, yet appears the man of the Middle Ages, rude, violent, untamable. He was created with ferocious instincts, and singular energy; at the age of thirteen, during a sedition, he was the first to organise the defence, and mounting his horse, he rallied his soldiers and put to flight those who 259 assaulted him. At fifteen, at Lungarino, he defeated the Duke of Urbino. The precocity he evinced in courage, he gave proof of in passion and crime. Slight, tall, and well proportioned, of a proud carriage, with small keen eyes, an aquiline nose, and a complexion lightly bronzed, his whole physiognomy expressed intelligence and craft. His hair, which hid his brow, according to the fashion of the time, was pressed smoothly on to his crown as if by a helmet. The dignity of his bearing imposed respect; his fiery eloquence inspired those who followed him with the contempt of death, and he could embolden the least resolute. His soldiers loved him, in spite of his severity, for he was just and lived as a soldier amongst them and shared their sufferings. His personal courage was heroic; he knew no obstacle; again and again he had been known to step forth from the ranks alone to challenge his principal foe. His frame seemed of iron; rest seemed unnecessary to him, and the rigours of climate indifferent; he drank fetid water, endured hunger without complaining, would remain in the saddle uninterruptedly day and night. This man, terrible in his wrath and implacable in his hate, who sent challenges to the Duke of Urbino, who attempted to poison Sforza, and, after all his crimes and outrages, finding himself hemmed in, called on the sultan to invade Italy, could patiently support the vicissitudes of a siege, and while the breaching and sapping were going on, would trace the design of a fortress with Roberto Valturio, or correspond with Lorenzo the Magnificent on the subject of the decoration of a chapel. Before 260 Cremona besieged, he sits down to write to Piero della Francesca; before Siena, campaigning against the Count of Pittigliano, he settled on the form to give the dome of San Francesco.

“Magnificent in his hospitality, Sigismondo loved festivals, rich draperies, monuments, and public decorations. He delighted in art, science, and philosophy, and did not neglect the question of immigration. He invited colonists to Sinigaglia from all parts of Italy and allotted land to them. Whenever an artist arose, he sought to attach him to himself; and his turbulence and taste for adventures alone prevented his little court of Rimini, already celebrated throughout Italy, from acquiring an even greater lustre. He was learned in antiquity, very advanced in philosophy, and seemed made for all he undertook. Love made him a poet, he was born an orator: his harangues to his troops are worthy of the ancients. Finally, this lord of a remote domain on the shore of the Adriatic, among all the princes of all the nations, rendered to art and letters the most solemn homage rendered to them since classic times. Having vowed to dedicate a temple to the Lord in gratitude for his victories, within this pantheon wherein he placed his tomb and his ancestors’, he willed that around him should be grouped the sepulchres of all the writers, men of learning, philosophers, and artists who had lived at his court. Such was the hero who has been portrayed in the superb medals of Pisanello and Matteo da Pasti.”

In Sigismondo you have an epitome of mankind. He was distinguished by all and every one of the vices and virtues, not only, we might say, of mankind 261 but of all living things. He travelled all the way to Rome with a poniard hugged to his breast, determined to stab the Pope to death. Knowing the desperate nature of the man, they surrounded him with a pontifical escort, loaded him with honours, and introduced him to the Holy Father. Then only, seeing himself surrounded and watched by a hundred eyes, did his hand cease to feel for his weapon and his thoughts of murder pass from him.

He loved his mistress Isotta with a devotion that was literally idolatrous; yet in the high tide of his passion he was suddenly consumed with a desire for a German lady, the wife of the lord of Borbona. He lay in wait for her near Fano. Dispersing her escort, he threw himself on her like a wild beast. She resisted, he savagely silenced her, and profaned a corpse with his embraces. Even the crime-stained Italy of his own day cried out in horror at the deed. The Supreme Pontiff, rising in the chair of Peter, denounced him before all Christendom.

It is the shade of this terrific man that haunts the battered, time-worn citadel of Rimini. Himself an engineer of remarkable skill, Sigismondo welcomed to his court the learned and ingenious Roberto Valturio, the author of that famous treatise on fortification, “De Re Militari.”1 This man was a natural-born subject of Sigismondo, and he was buried in the Temple of Rimini, having reached the age of seventy-one ears. He probably supplied the designs for the fortress of which the terrible lord of Rimini laid the foundations in the year 1437. To make room for it the Gattolo 262 was demolished, with the works of Ghiberti. A medal was struck in 1446 to commemorate the completion. The work done slowly seems to have been done well, for the castle excited the admiration and envy of all the Italian princes. Though the first fortress built in Italy after the introduction of artillery, it was constructed without regard to the changed conditions of warfare, remarks Melazzi, a military engineer; a statement which hardly seems warranted by the careful provision for flanking defence and the bastion-like outline of the towers.

A ditch, one hundred feet wide and thirty-five feet deep, isolated the castle from the town. This was filled up in 1826 and at the same time the outer wall, fifty feet high, and the massive outer gate-house were barbarously levelled. The inner ward extended across the enceinte from north to south, its walls uniting with the outer wall to form a mighty triangular tower, which has now been cut down to half its height and abominably mutilated. Within the inner ward stood the rectangular keep, with the barracks and residential quarters grouped round it. A considerable portion of this part of the fabric remains, pulled about, restored, and generally deformed into a common gaol. The most substantial fragment is the gate of the inner ward, consisting of a right-angled tower, heavily machicolated, and bearing the elephant’s head — the device of the Malatestas. An inscription records the foundation in these terms: “Sigismundus Pandulfus Malatesta, Pan F. Molem hanc Arimenensium decus novam a fundamentis erecit construxitque ac castellum suo nomine Sigismundum appellari censuit, MDCCCCXLVL.” The 263 gate is deeply recessed between two massive square towers, rising from enormously high pyramidal plinths. Dilapidated and stunted though these now appear, there is still about them a suggestion of the strength and originality of their fierce founder.

Within, you will find little to recall his times or his presence. Yet the castle was his permanent home, not, as in less-threatened states, an occasional place of refuge. The Malatestas were, in fact, land pirates, and every man’s hand was against them. For all the brilliant circle of wits and sages of which he was the centre, Sigismondo at all times lived as in a camp. Splendour and luxury were reserved at Rimini for public ceremonials; within the castle reigned a military simplicity and austerity. Yriarte, making an inventory of the court, found the lord’s chamber to have been furnished with a curtained bed, two great chests, some weapons and pieces of armour and saddlery, and a lectern on which were placed a few manuscript volumes of the classics, a copy of Valturio’s book on fortification, and another of Sigismondo’s poems to Isotta.

With her presence, Malatesta felt his rude home well furnished enough. It was while the fortress was building and he had temporary quarters in the Via Santa Croce that he first met her. Long before the keep had been girdled with walls, she had forged triple chains round that wayward volcanic heart. In all his myriad mistresses, he lacked something that he could find only in her; through all his infidelities he was true to her. Every historian has praised Isotta’s wisdom, tact, vigour and beauty; we wish that some of them had been able to specify the peculiar charm that 264 held this fifteenth-century superman in a life-long spell. Expecting her, no doubt, to be presently discarded like the other lemans of the tyrant, her father addressed to her violent reproaches when the connection began; but as the years passed his indignation died down. On 18th February 1448, Sigismondo threw open the gates of his newly built castle to his citizens. Around him were gathered many of his princely neighbours; beside him sat his legal wife, the daughter of Francesco Sforza. In her presence, Antonio degli Atti, Isotta’s brother, was made a knight; his spurs were buckled on by the Count of Urbino, and Sigismondo, having exhorted him on the duties of knighthood, gave him the accolade. Next, he bestowed on him by public act the town of Rasano, while Isotta offered him two hundred golden ducats in a silver cup.

An even stranger scene, illustrative of the curious meeting of the old barbarism and the new civilization, was enacted not long after, on the same spot. “One day at Rimini, two envoys of the King of Aragon — orators, as they were then called — both natives of Gerona, fell out, fought, and still irritated against each other, invoked the arbitrament of Sigismondo. A solemn ceremony is enacted in the court of the fortress; the circumstances of the original quarrel and the challenge are reconstituted, and in the end a reconciliation is effected, signed before a notary and sealed with the lord’s seal.” In these days hate is neither so easily gratified nor so easily extinguished as then.

Warring, intriguing, fighting like a wild cat for his principality, Sigismondo lived half-a-century; and died, a captain in the service of his enemy the Pope, in his 265 castle at Rimini on 7th October 1468. At his death his fiefs should legally have reverted to the holy see. Isotta, designated by Sigismondo regent for their son Sallustio, shut herself up in the castle, and called on the Venetians to help her against the Pontiff. But on 20th October 1469 a man in peasant’s dress passed the sentries, and penetrated her chamber. She recognised him as Roberto, the legitmated son of Sigismondo and Vanetta dei Toschi — a man hardly less formidable than his father. Isotta proposed that they should reign over Rimini jointly. Roberto agreed, but while she conspired with the Venetians he intrigued with Milan and Urbino. He defeated the papal forces, and in 1471 wrung from Sixtus IV. his recognition as lord of Rimini. Sallustio was already disposed of; his body was found in the well of a house belonging to the Marcheselli, and one of that family was instantly torn to pieces as the perpetrator of the crime. Isotta perished at the end of the year of a slow fever which made her a living corpse. These catastrophes were not attributed to the unaided hand of providence.

Reconciled with the Church, Roberto led her armies and died in her service in 1482. Sixteen years after, Cæsar Borgia, busy in carving out a duchy in the Romagna, appeared before Rimini. Pandolfaccio, the degenerate grandson of Sigismondo, took refuge in the castle, and surrendered it to the invaders in exchange for a sum of money. On the overthrow of Borgia he attempted to recover his authority. The strong fortress was sold to him by the garrison for forty-five hundred ducats, which he was obliged to borrow from the Venetians. He was again forced to 266 abandon the city; his son, imitating his grandfather, penetrated in later years into the fortress in the guise of a peasant, and for a brief period restored the rule of the Malatesta. Adrian IV. was besought to confirm their authority, but the resources of Pandolfaccio were exhausted and he lived the rest of his life the abject pensioner of the Duke of Ferrara. Sigismondo died at Reggio; his younger brother left Venice for England in 1549 and was never heard of again. Perhaps somewhere amongst us the antique breed of Malatesta flourishes; at Rimini they died out forever.

They vanished, too, from CESENA, where the gloomy Rocca Malatestiana, frowning from its hill, commemorates their dominion. The foundations of the fortress were far older than they; they were laid in the blackest night of the Dark Ages. In 1333 the townsfolk revolted against the Pope, and acclaimed Ramberto Malatesta as their podestà. The papal governor, Rudolfo Grassoni, was besieged in the citadel, whence he escaped and essayed to lead an army back to its relief. In this attempt he was foiled; and the next year we find Ordelaffi, the Ghibelline leader, fortifying the stronghold anew, and holding it against Acciaiuoli, the legate of John XXII. In 1357 Cardinal Albornoz came into the Romagna to reduce the cities once more to the obedience of the Holy Father. Cesena was defended by Ordelaffi’s wife, Marzia degli Ubaldini, better known as Cia. “Among her captains,” we are told, “there was not one who surpassed her in courage, and no warrior had a stronger arm.” Two of the citizens made a secret treaty with the cardinal, and promised to persuade this amazon to deliver up to him 267 the fortress. On the pretext of taking counsel with them, she invited them within its walls, where they left their heads. She then made a clean sweep of all the papal partisans in the town, and threw them into the dungeons of her stronghold. The force at her disposal consisted of barely four hundred men, but she was able to inspire them with the courage of a thousand. Albornoz, by mining, brought down a tower, and drove the defenders from the outworks. But the dauntless Cia showed no sign of yielding. Her own father, who fought in the papal ranks, was sent under a flag of truce to induce her to surrender. He entreated her to avert the useless effusion of blood. “My father,” she replied, “when you gave me to my husband, you exhorted me in all things to obey him. That I shall do the last day of my life. Here I do not decide but obey.” Seeing that the besiegers were undermining one of the towers, Cia placed all her Guelf prisoners in it, and warned Albornoz to proceed with the work of destruction at the peril of their lives. But her own soldiers thought they had done enough; and to her bitter chagrin constrained her, on 21st June 1357, to surrender the fortress to the ever-victorious cardinal. Refusing all consideration for herself, she was confined as a prisoner in the Castle of Ancona, to be set at liberty in exchange for the city of Forli which her husband had taken. Her magnificent defence deserves to be famed beyond the limits of Italy.

Twenty years later the town was barbarously sacked and ravaged by an army of Breton, and perhaps British, mercenaries under the orders of Cardinal Robert of Geneva. Upwards of five thousand of the citizens 268 were massacred by the northern savages. Galeotto Malatesta by order of Pope Urban VI., was constituted the avenger of Cesena. He blockaded the Bretons in the castle, and took it by storm, exacting a toll of eight hundred lives. On the gratitude of the citizens he founded the authority of his house over the city. He appears to have razed the ancient rocca, and to have begun the actual structure; a work not completed by his son, Andrea, who died in 1416. On the death of Pandolfo of Rimini, Cesena was allotted to his younger son, called Malatesta Novello; who, probably inspired by the example of his brother Sigismondo, and assisted perhaps by Valturio, carried the work of fortification several stages further. He was a prince of peaceful, studious habits, whose most fitting and durable monument is the library which bears his name. At his death, in 1465, his little state was immediately occupied by the papal troops; and his Holiness Paul II., to rivet his chains on the city, entrusted the completion of the citadel to Matteo Nuti, who had designed the Biblioteca Malatestiana. This architect died soon after, and the last stone of the fortress was laid under the supervision of Cristoforo da Ferrara in 1473.





Black and white photograph of Rocca Malatestiana in Rimini, Italy, thirteenth century on a treeless landscape, taken in the late 19th century.

ROCCA MALATESTIANA, ITALY.

From Romantic Castles and Palaces, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers, edited and translated by Esther Singleton.





The castle occupies a commanding position on the south-west of the little city. The hill on which it stands was in the time of Cia, and indeed for centuries after, encircled by a strong fortified wall. The enclosure thus formed was called the Murato. There are still the remains of a machicolated tower, built by Nuti, at the angle adjoining the Palazzo Communale, and thence a wall is carried up the slope to a terrace and tower at the north-east angle of the castle. This wall 269 once covered a subterranean gallery. The fortress now forms a five-sided polygon, but the east front, now a straight wall, is not original. The curtains are flanked by hollow bastions, on one of which an inscription commemorates the architect Nuti. The walls are still of great strength and thickness, and surmounted by a rampart walk, with a parapet in each side. At the north-east angle, to the east of the wall from the outworks, projects a fine round tower, with a base boldly battering nearly to the summit, and presenting an unscalable front to an enemy. In the interior of the castle stands the keep — a square tower, with the remains of a machicolation, and rising from a high sloping plinth. Once connected with it, probably, by a flying bridge, is the palazzo, a similar building, oblong in shape, and terminating at the south-east corner in a pentagonal tower. Though converted into a barracks, and sadly pulled about, the Castle of Cesena recalls the frowning martial temper of the last mediæval despots more vividly than any other stronghold in Romagna.

The Castle of FORLI, built by Cardinal Albornoz in 1361,2 also perpetuates the memory of a brave woman. It closely resembles the citadel of Imola, built by the same prelate in the same year. The plan of both is rectangular, with massive round towers flanking the curtains, and more or less temporary residential buildings in the inner court. They are now prisons; and to such a use were often put by Girolamo Riario, who had been appointed in 1480 by his uncle or father, 270 Sixtus IV., vicar of both towns. Exasperated by his neglecting to pay their arrears of salary, Cecco del Orso, the captain of his guard, and two other officers, resolved to rid the townsfolk of this tyrant. On 19th April 1488 the three conspirators demanded an audience of Riario while his servants were at dinner; and finding him, as they had foreseen, alone, at once despatched him with their daggers. They stripped the body of its clothes, and threw it, naked, from the window. The people acclaimed the deed with rapture, and dragged the dead man in triumph through the streets of Forli. His widow, Catarina, the natural daughter of Galeazzo Maria of Milan, and her children were seized, and the commandant was summoned to surrender the citadel. He refused to do so unless his mistress, having first been set at liberty, so ordered him. Catarina was informed of this by her savage captors, and declared her willingness to give the desired command. Her children being kept as hostages, she was suffered to enter the citadel. She had no sooner seen the bridge drawn up behind her than she ordered the garrison to fire on the attacking force. The insurgent leaders paraded her children before the ramparts, and warned her that their lives were forfeited by her treachery. The intrepid woman appeared on the tower that goes by her name and, by one account, reminded the enemy that she had still a child at Imola, and expected shortly to give birth to another, who would know how to avenge his brothers. Machiavelli and Muratori say that her reply took the form of a significant gesture, and the reminder that she had the means of replacing her lost offspring, if needs were. 271 The insurgents did not, at all events, execute their threat; they sent their hostages instead to the Castle of Cesena, the governor of which town was presently ordered by Pope Innocent VIII. to support the revolt. Catarina found herself closely besieged; but a Milanese force was sent to her assistance and, entering the town through the citadel, surprised and defeated the investing army. Six of the papal officers, contrary to all the rules of war, were beheaded, and the governor of Cesena, having fallen into the hands of the Milanese, was exchanged for the sons of the murdered Riario. His Holiness, “ever ready to undertake a bold enterprise, always frightened to proceed with it when resistance was offered,” made haste now to confirm Catarina, as regent for her children, in the government of the two towns.

Eleven years later, when Cæsar Borgia came to conquer the Romagna, he found her ready to oppose him. She threw garrisons into her castles and exhorted the citizens to arm in her defence. Instead Imola welcomed the Pope’s son as a deliverer. Cæsar marched in on 27th November 1499, and the next day opened the trenches before the citadel. On 4th December he blew down a part of the wall, and the commandant, Dionigi di Naldo, asked for terms. He promised to capitulate unless relieved within four days. No help came, and the fortress fell.

Dozza, a stronghold of the same type, which you see on your right as you descend the dreary Emilian Way from Bologna to Imola, contrived to hold out for the Riarii; but Cæsar passed on to Forli, where Catarina herself directed the defence. The citizens resolved to 272 follow the example of Imola, and sent two of their number to the citadel to inform their mistress of their decision. She threw the messengers into a dungeon and fired on the town, demolishing the tower of the communal palace. Cæsar opened the trenches a few days before Christmas. Catarina hoisted the banner of St Mark as if she were assisted by Venetian troops, but did not succeed in deceiving her assailants. Borgia three times on three successive days rode up to the walls and implored Riario’s widow to surrender. From the height of the rampart she rejected all offers of an honourable capitulation. The besiegers opened fire and kept it up without intermission for a fortnight. Catarina was seen daily on the ramparts, encouraging her men. On 12th January a breach was effected. Every citizen was ordered to throw a fascine into the ditch, and the Borgia’s troops rushed to the assault. Not till the evening did they penetrate over fifty corpses into the inner court. The defenders, mixed with their assailants, retreated towards the keep; there was no time to raise the bridge and both entered together fighting. A Burgundian soldier, sword in hand, rushed through the narrow corridors and seized Catarina, surrounded by her servants. He hurried her before his commander and claimed her as his prize. Cæsar greeted her courteously, and congratulated her on the valour of her defence. Seeing she had lost her all in the siege, he craved her acceptance of a purse of gold. He had great difficulty in settling matters with her captor, who claimed twenty thousand ducats as his reward, and was bitterly discontented with the four thousand allotted to him. Indeed, according to one version, he wished to dispute 273 his prize with his captain at the sword’s point. That night the brave lady was escorted from the fortress by her chivalrous opponent and lodged in the Palazzo de’ Numai, which he had chosen as his own quarters. Her brother and brother-in-law and a natural son of her late husband were taken at the same time. Her own children she had sent, at the beginning of hostilities, to Florence.

She was taken to Cesena, which became the new Duke of Romagna’s capital. There he passed the Christmas of 1500, in the palace built by Nuti. He donned the ducal cap and mantle, and seated on a daïs showed himself to his new subjects. He inaugurated his brief reign with festivals and public games, winning all hearts by his handsome face and gracious bearing. But the passions of his race were not slow to assert themselves. On 14th February the Podestà of Cervia notified the Venetian government that Madonna Dorotea, the wife of Giambattista Caracciolo, a captain of their service, had been carried of by a party of Spaniards near his town, while on the way to Urbino. The Signory ordered their ambassadors to inquire into the affair. It soon became evident that the ravishers were troops in Cæsar’s pay; and, when remonstrated with, he admitted so much, adding that the deed had been done by Diego Ramirez, an old lover of the lady, and that he had disappeared. But it became noised abroad that Dorotea was confined in the Castle of Forli, where she was visited by the duke, and that she accompanied him to Cesena. Her husband announced his determination of assembling a force to rescue her. She, by no means reluctantly, had travelled with Cæsar to Rome, and there, by order of the new Pope, she was set at 274 liberty in January 1504. It was remarked that her health and spirits had in no way suffered during her captivity.

Borgia’s government was popular in Romagna; and upon the confiscation of his fiefs and his imprisonment by Pius III. his towns and fortresses remained loyal to him. The Venetians, profiting by his absence, attacked Cesena, and were badly defeated. Piero Ramirez, the governor of the citadel, refused to surrender the keys to the Pope’s envoy till his master was set at liberty. Another envoy, formerly in the duke’s service, he hanged from the battlements. The infuriated Pontiff sent imperative orders to the Romagnese towns to tear down the escutcheon of the Borgia. Cæsar, imprisoned in Sant’ Angelo, was offered his liberty in exchange for his fortresses. He bowed to the inevitable, and after protracted negotiations despatched the required orders to his commandants. On 11th August 1584 his troops marched out of their citadels, with flags flying and drums beating, to the cry of “Duca! duca!” Gonsalvo da Mirafonte, governor of Forli, rode out in full armour, lance in hand, preceded by a herald who proclaimed the titles of the Duke of Romagna; on each side rode his lieutenants; behind him marched two hundred musketeers. Sacchi, the new pontifical governor, assisted at the parade as at a triumphal procession. The keys were handed to him, and the brief but not inglorious reign of Cæsar Borgia was at an end.

Notes

 1  There is a copy in the British Museum.

 2  1372, according to the anonymous author of the Annales Foroliovienses (Muratori, Rerum Ital. Script., t. 22).





The tragedy of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo inspired Dante to make them dwellers in the Inferno, read (on this site) Dole’s nice description of them there in Chapter II, Dante and the Picturesque, A Teacher of Dante and Other Studies in Italian Literature,, by Nathan Haskell Dole; New York: Moffat, Yard & Company, 1908.










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Decorated Adorment from the spine of the book, of a tree with gilt leaves on a burgundy woven ground.




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